<em>Friends Change</em>—More Great Space Opera

Jennifer

- 2 minutes read - 424 words

A few years ago I got to read and review the book Gift of Change by D. T. Sanders (Buy on Amazon). So when the sequel came out, I was intrigued. From the very first page, Friends Change did not disappoint. It is just as fast-paced and fun as the first book, but with a lot more characterization.

Jason and Fallon Change A Lot

The change in the title of this story is not a misnomer. Jason and Fallon go through momentous changes in this book and come out at the end almost inhumanly different. Their lives are very scary and I would not want to live them, but reading about them sure is a lot of fun! The first section sees Jason and Fallon barely making it back to the space port with their ship practically in pieces. It’s a miracle that they were able to get there at all. Almost immediately they are captured in the guise of getting them healing. And Fallon and Jason have to get free of a sadistic group of sex peddlers who only keep them alive because they hope they can figure out the technology keeping Fallon and Jason alive.

Luckily, They Have Fred and Fredericka and …

Fred is their computer, who has also changed a lot from the basic enhanced ship-board computer he started as. By the end of the book there are many many different versions of Fred, all of whom are intelligent and self-aware replicas of him. Jason keeps telling Fred “don’t make any more changes to your programming before we can talk about what you’ve already done.” But Fred has progressed past simply following directions long before Jason figures out that he’s got a self-aware AI on his hands.

Huge Space Battle

The last section of the book is a huge space battle. It is epic in scale and covers many different battles and scenarios. This is the most confusing section of the book for me as I wasn’t always clear which fighters were the good guys and which battle cruisers were the bad guys. But they do save the day in the end. What’s really cool is that they not only save themselves, they also save an entire system that was stuck in a debt-slavery circle that no one could get out of.

Fun and Worth the Money

I bought this on my Kindle for only a few dollars, but it was worth the cost of a print copy too. If you like space opera, you should check out Friends Change.